CENTRAL COAST, Calif. -- The next
time you try to remodel or buy a home, it might cost you a little extra.
The state is adding a one percent
tax increase on lumber.
The tax is expected to raise $35
million dollars a year to pay for regulating and maintaining forest land but
lumber sellers say it's another burden for builders to bear.
Sheets of ply wood and four by
fours can cost you more because of the new tax pushed by the California timber
industry to pass the cost of regulating and maintaining forest land onto the
consumers. The legislation is designed to keep the timber industry competitive
with other timber companies outside of the state.
"When we start seeing increases
especially in taxes like that it hurts!" says Hayward Lumber Regional Manager
Rudi Lokkart. "It's really putting a pressure on them."
Lokkart says since the downfall of the housing market,
homeowners and builders had to scale back and delay building projects for years
and the tax is another hurdle they have to go through to get their projects off
the ground.
"The more people that can afford a house, the sooner we will start seeing
our industry turn around and start gaining some of the strength we lost six
years ago."
The tax is meant to raise money
for the cost of forest regulation, fire fighting and prevention shifting it from
the timber companies to consumers. SOT
"But it shifts the burden to the
builder and consumer and these guys are struggling to make their budgets work
for them," says Lokkart.
The new measure takes effect at
the beginning of the year which Lokkart says will increase the price of
building.
He also says the lumber industry has had to make several
layoffs over the years because of the increasing building costs.
"It can't be absorbed by us or the builder, we are
operating at margins that can't absorb that kind of an increase," says Lokkart.
"Ultimately, the increase has to flow through the end user -- the
consumer."
